least for now we're going to need a new sound effect. >> huh? >> huh? i think we still need a new sound effect. that one kind of sucked. we'll get a new one and keep you posted. good thursday morning. right now on "first look," the northeast braces for a historic blizzard complete with powerful wind gusts. we have your weather channel forecast just ahead. president obama orders the justice department to release classified documents over his choice to use drone attacks against americans. plus, a bad nanny caught in the act of hitting an infant. a dog with a human face. and, believe it or not, a stud dwla tells women the day and time and week when they're the least attractive. good morning. whether you live in the northeast or you're traveling anywhere near there this weekend, you need to know

there's a whopper of a snowstorm headed this way. the national weather service is forecasting as much as two feet of snow in some areas and a potentially dangerous icy mix in others. bill karins is tracking that storm. bill, what can we expect? >> the storm is still on. looks just as bad today as it did yesterday at this time. we have more agreement. that means more of a chance it's going to happen. let me introduce you to the two storms that are going to become our one storm. the first is through the great lakes from milwaukee to grand rapids to chicago. travel is not fun. some areas getting six inches of snow. then we have a lot of rain and thunderstorms down here in the gulf. the two of these storms are going to move pretty much to the east coast as we go throughout the next 24 hours and then blow up into a big storm, a nor'easter, possibly a blizzard as we go through new england. friday night, saturday morning, no one's going to want to be traveling in new england. >> thanks so much, bill. president obama's nominee to head the cia can look forward to a grilling on capitol hill this morning. during confirmation hearings, john brennan will be asked to

explain the legal justification tore predator drone strikes against u.s. citizens. they're expected to zero in as his chief counter-terrorism adviser, specifically what he knew and when he knew it. his knowledge of the administration's use of the tactic faces scrutiny after the release of confidential government documents. drones are used to kill americans believed to be leaders of al qaeda. that news brought backlash from both sides of the aisle along with demands of the administration's legal justification for the strikes. the white house bound to growing political pressure and agreed to hand over the documents to congress. dianne feinstein who heads the intelligence committee says lawmakers should know what brennan knew and when he knew it. she released a statement saying it's critical for the committee's oversight function to fully understand the legal basis for all intelligence and counter-terrorism operations. in a speech last summer, brennan said the use of drone strikes by the u.s. turned al qaeda into a shadow of what it

once was. under president obama, the program has been used to take out more than 400 terrorist targets in pakistan and the middle east. potential cuts in the defense department budget are already forcing changes in american military operations. the pentagon says it will reduce the naval presence in the persian gulf. plans for the uss harry truman carrier to head to the gulf this week have been canceled. that would leave one carrier in the region. defense secretary leon panetta warns under the cuts pentagon workers could face furloughs saying, this is not a game this is reality. vice president joe biden made an emotional appeal to house democrats last night urging them to support the obama administration's gun control agenda. biden choked up while speaking about the recent tragedy at sandy hook and recounted examples of 1600 deaths since that day. his tone turned emphatic reminding audience as their obligation as lawmakers to act.

>> when people tell me that you can't prevent these kinds of occurrences, that doesn't mean we can't do something to god forbid if it happens again diminish the carnage. it matters. it matters. >> speaking to those worried about the political consequences of backing controversial gun legislation, biden argued "i promise you, times have changed." new jersey governor chris christie is known for being direct. wednesday his response to a doctor offering unsolicited opinions about his weight is just that. >> this is just another hack who wants five minutes on tv. >> his comments came after a former white house doctor said she worries christie might die in office if he's elected president. the governor has been outspoke been his weight in the past and even joked about it on the "late show" with david letterman this

week. >> it's completely irresponsible, completely irresponsible. i have four children between 9 and 19. my children, my 12-year-old son says, dad, are you going to die? if she wants to come to a plane and examine me and review my medical history, i'll have a conversation with her about that. until that time, she should shut up. >> all righty then. that means your first look at this morning's dish of scrambled politics. chuck hagel conference has been delayed. hagel has not spoken to the president since his contentious confirmation hearings. he still meeting with senators to shore up the votes. senator mork yoe rubio of florida will be delivering the gop response to president obama's state of the union address. rubio will speak first in english and he'll also prerecord a version in spanish for the spanish language network. scott brown declined to say

if he would run for governor of massachusetts next year. he hinted about a political future telling politicalo, i'm no dead. there will be a new senator sworn in today for massachusetts, cowan will fill the john kerry seat until a special election in june. on tuesday, maryland's two senators will get the spoils of victory for the baltimore ravens beating the san francisco 49ers. california senators barbara boxer and dianne feinstein will deliver crabs, napa valley wine, sow dough bread and cheese to the winners. thomas massy of kentucky is sponsoring a new bill that will legalize nonsmokeable strain of marijuana. it is called kemp and has many uses ranging from twine, rope, and fabric. and that's your morning dish of scrambled politics. turning back to weather, bill karins is here with more on what is shaping up to be a

powerful nor'easter. >> the conditions are changing. we want to keep you safe during the storm. blizzard watches have been issued for rhode island, the eastern half of massachusetts, and now about three quarters of the state of connecticut. so they've expanded the blizzard watches. the confidence is growing in what the storm is going to do. in the blizzard area, again, the areas covered in this green color, 12 to 24 inches of snow, wind gusts up to 70 miles per hour. and then a storm surge with a high tide cycle, especially from boston southward, any north facing beach, we could have moderate to major coastal flooding with water going into homes and destroying some homes. and on top of that, we could get the wind damage. the winds up to 70 miles per hour. not going to be a fun two days out there on cape cod as we go throughout the high tide cycles and anywhere in eastern mass, south of boston. as far as snow totals, this is the american computer. one to two feet. less for connecticut and massachusetts.

a little less for new york city. widespread 6 to 10 over northern new england. the european computer which has been on this storm has been pinpointing it all along. much higher with the snowfall totals. again, upwards of 20 inches, even new york city possibly 11 inches. here's my forecast for the storm. this is my first estimate. i'll tweak this as needed. new york city, four to eight. here is that one to two foot line anywhere in eastern mass. there is going to be to be somewhere there will be banding and lightning and thunder during snowfall. again, we could see two feet in some spots. it's going to be a rough friday night and saturday morning. >> thank you, bill. the ten most disliked athletes in america. an outrage over some are calling a racist frat party at duke university. plus, the thrill of victory. and the agony of racing up 1576 steps of the empire state building. "first look" is back in three minutes. [ male announcer ] rocky had no idea why dawn was gone for so long...

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welcome back. here's some other stories making news this morning. new sanctions against iran go into effect today. the obama administration is targeting the country's state broadcaster and internet policing agency. economic sanctions enacted last summer have been triggered. washington hopes the moves will force iran to halt their nuclear program. former lapd officer christopher dorner is wanted in connection to a double hom site. a basketball coach and her fiance were found shot to death sunday night. some students at duke university says the fraternity went too far in throwing an asian themed party. people were dressed as sumo wrestlers and invitation in the party was written in broken english. members of duke's asian-american student association are protesting what they call a racist rager. beginning in august, the

post office will no longer deliver mail on saturdays. however, your packages will still show up in your mail box. post office locations will remain open. it's expected to save the cash strapped agency about $2 billion a year. there is research out that will pinpoint the time and day of the week when a woman looks her worst. wednesday afternoon at 3:30 has been precisely identified as the time when women's energy levels drop and work stress peaks. they reported feeling stress several days a week but hump day is the worst. for that i say, thank goodness it's thursday. moving on to business, a big deal up in the air is sure to get wall street's attention this morning. according to "the wall street journal," american airlines parent amr and us airways are hashing out final details of major merger. meanwhile, keep an eye on boeing today. the ntsb will deliver an update on the dream liner investigation in washington this morning. the plane maker says it's

working on design changes to the lithium ion batteries used in the dreamliners in hopes of getting the grounded jets back in the air. on wednesday, federal regulators told boeing they could resume one test flight with a crew but no passengers. elsewhere, yahoo shares took off in late trade on news they struck an advertising deal with google. home depot is hiring 80,000 seasonal workers for this spring. that's 10,000 more hires than last year. listen up. if you're one of millions of americans answering work e-mails at home, a case is moving forward in chicago filed by a cop who claims he and fellow officers are owed overtime pay for answering calls and scanning e-mails off duty on their blackberries. after ten years, apple reached a new milestone. 25 billion songs have now been purchased on itunes. a customer in germany will receive a gift card worth more than $13,000 for the lucky download of a song called "monkey drums." incredibly, 15,000 songs are

downloaded on itunes every minute. a lot of music. coffee lovers rejoiced wednesday when starbucks opened its new flag ship store in india's capital. hasbro let the cat out of the bag. the iron is out as a monopoly game piece and the cat is in. and a study out today finds restaurant chains are cashing in on lower calorie menu offering which pushed sales up by 5%. mcdonald's in australia is testing out table service complete with china, glass wear and cult lettery. do you need that? and one out of four americans plan to spend more this valentine's day than last year. for men, that is about $85. for women, that's $48. you still have seven days left to get ready for valentine's day so you're good. up next, your early today sports highlights plus meet a man who has a pension for slapping his kid just got her slapped by the law. some cacti. it should be under stephens. the verizon share everything plan for small business. get a shareable pool of data...

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and make your business dream a reality. at legalzoom.com we put the law on your side. turning to our top stories, confirmation hearings of john brennan for cia director and release of classified documents on u.s. drone strikes. joining me for more on this is sinn syndicated columnist bob franken. let's start with the release of the documents which the administration won't officially acknowledge until wednesday. why are they releasing them now? >> they're releasing them in a couple of hours before the hearing which is a little bit cynical when you think of it. it's going to be difficult to do a thorough analysis of them.

but the answer to your question is they're releasing them because they were sort of embarrassed into doing them. >> and what effect are the memos expected to have on the confirmation hearings? >> this is going to be a hearing that touches not only on drone strikes but also on torture. one could argue that a senate hearing is inherently torture. but the truth is that it's going to extend them. it's going to give ammunition to people who have been very skeptical about the administration policies on drone strikes. >> in the past, brennan called the strikes legal, ethical and wise. what do we know about the administration's legal justification for using them? >> what we do know already is the white paper that was uncovered by nbc news where they argued that they're justified with an imminent threat of attack, doesn't even have to be an immediate attack. it's not feasible to capture the person that they're targeting. that's a very vague kind of rational. and they're going to be many people who are arguing that it's

too vague. that it's subject to abuse. >> all right. we'll certainly continue following the story. bob franken, thank you. now here's your "first look" at the other news going on around america. in new york, a disturbing video shows a nanny slapping a 5-month-old for not heating. concerned parents installed a hidden camera. the mom saw what was going on and she rushed home and fired the caretaker who is arrested. a 22-year-old grad student and chicken farmer who has grown so close to the flock over the years, he's known around town as chicken boy. he has had the chickens for so long, he even picked up their language. >> it's like i just laid an egg in this box. come lay your egg. and it's -- >> that is quite a skill. he plans to continue his education so that he can some day become dr. chicken. now to georgia where a fatal pile up on the highway left four

dead and several others injured. 27 vehicles were involved including an empty petroleum tanker that caught fire. in new york, two australians took top prizes for racing to the top of the empire state building. runners from 18 countries sped up the 85 stories with more than 1500 steps. the winners had impressive times of around 10 and 12 minutes each. pretty fast. now to indiana, a special four legged friend is looking for a new home. 2-year-old tonik got plenty of attention after his family posted this picture on line. many state the dog has a human face, especially around the eyes. he is a mixed breed. no humans as far as we know. certainly does have a man-like face. moving on to sports, another big upset in college basketball. kansas suffered the second straight loss as unranked texas christian got 20 points from garland green. tcu held on for the first win ever against the top five team.

62-55 over kansas. and the home team fans celebrated by rushing the court as time ran out. and world cup qualifying soccer, the u.s. gave up a goal in the 79th minute to honduras and lost 2-1. next, the u.s. will travel home to take on costa rica in the ten-game tournament that will be played through october. a american xirer won his first career super g at the world championships in australia finishing the course in just under 1:24. disgraced cyclist lance armstrong is given a two-week extension to possibly work out an agreement to cooperate with the u.s. anti-doping agency. the agency is looking for full details on armstrong's blood doping and drug use to win seven tour de france titles. a very rare baseball card from 1865 has been auctioned off for $92,000. it shows a photograph of the brooklyn atlantic's amateur baseball club. the card was found at a yard sale in maine. now that is a great find. now for another look at the

weather, here's bill karins with more on this big storm that we have coming. >> yeah, up to this point i've been looking at the computer models. let me give you my official forecast after going through and looking at the information. the areas of pink is where we're talking 6 to 12. the purplish color, 12 inches plus. a little sliver here possibly of 24 inches. very rare i put that on a weather map. you can see as we go to pennsylvania and areas outside of d.c. and baltimore, not much if anything. philadelphia, maybe possibly a couple inches on the backside of this storm. for the most part, this is a southern new england special. this is really going to hit you the hardest. we're talking from coastal areas of portland through boston. 18 to 24 inches possible in the boston area. hartford, 12 to 18. we're looking at four to eight inches in new york city. a rainy night and then snowing. >> maybe kids will get in some sledding. >> there will be a lot of sledding and snow days. just ahead, kim kardashian is packing serious heat. we'll explain. and we have the pictures. plus, we'll tell you about

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kim kardashian's divorce is uglier than it wasment she said i do not want to be married to kris humphries when i have my baby. she's using her apparently

unplanned pregnancy to speed things along and they're very far from a settlement. this photo of a diamond encrusted gun appeared and quickly disappeared from the twitter account after followers lashed out about recent gun violence. british prime minister david cameron auctioned off a meet and greet with justin bieber, one problem, he had no idea this was happening. the winning bid came in at $15,000. money for this supposedly going towards campaign funds. that's a lot of money for a teenage girl. forbes just released a list of the most disliked athletes in america. tiger woods makes the list thanks to many women in his life. manti te'o got a spot thanked to the make believe woman in his life and lance armstrong is america's most disliked athlete. my favorite on the list though, jay cutler. he proposed to his wife via text message and then mailed her the ring. >> manti te'o won't be on the list. >> poor kid. i feel bad for him.

>> aun kurt busch was on there, too. >> this is "first look" on msnbc. stay tuned, "way too early" starts right now. what creates a serious risk today is the pervasive budget uncertainty that threatens our security and threatens our economic future. >> the shadow of sequestration, this legislative madness, that was designed to be so bad -- so bad that no one in their right mind would let it happen. and, yet, it may still happen. defense secretary panetta meet the u.s. congress. good morning, everyone. i'm br